Women's History Month: Zora Neale Hurston

Black women have always played an important role in the history of the United States, often in the face of adversity. While their stories are often left out of the history books, there are a number of black women authors who have made significant contributions to American literature. IntellectualInk.com will highlight ten black women authors who have made a lasting impact on American culture. Today we honor Zora Neale Hurston and highlight Their Eyes Were Watching God.

Black women have always played an important role in the history of the United States, often in the face of adversity. While their stories are often left out of the history books, there are a number of black women authors who have made significant contributions to American literature. IntellectualInk.com will highlight ten black women authors who have made a lasting impact on American culture. Today we honor Toni Morrison and highlight The Bluest Eye... When Hurston arrived in New York City in 1925, the Harlem Renaissance was at its zenith, and she soon became one of the writers at its center. Shortly before she entered Barnard, Hurston's short story "Spunk" was selected for The New Negro, a landmark anthology of fiction, poetry, and essays focusing on African and African-American art and literature. in 1926, a group of young black writers including Hurston, Langston Hughes, and Wallace Thurman, calling themselves the Niggerati, produced a literary magazine called Fire!! that featured many of the young artists and writers of the Harlem Renaissance. ~ Wikipedia

Excerpt from Their Eyes Were Watching God

Ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board. For some they come in with the tide. For others they sail forever on the horizon, never out of sight, never landing until the Watcher turns his eyes away in resignation, his dreams mocked to death by Time. That is the life of men.

Now, women forget all those things they don’t want to remember, and remember everything they don’t want to forget. The dream is the truth. Then they act and do things accordingly.

So the beginning of this was a woman and she had come back from burying the dead. Not the dead of sick and ailing with friends at the pillow and the feet. She had come back from the sodden and the bloated; the sudden dead, their eyes flung wide open in judgment.

The people all saw her come because it was sundown. The sun was gone, but he had left his footprints in the sky. It was the time for sitting on porches beside the road. It was the time to hear things and talk. These sitters had been tongueless, earless, eyeless conveniences all day long. Mules and other brutes had occupied their skins. But now, the sun and the bossman were gone, so the skins felt powerful and human. They became lords of sounds and lesser things. They passed nations through their mouths. They sat in judgment.

Read Full Excerpt Here

https://www.zoranealehurston.com/resource/excerpt-from-their-eyes-were-watching-god/